The following is taken verbatim from Greg Prince’s impressive biography David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism. In the 1960s, LDS Church membership was just beginning to flourish outside the U.S., and this brought with it the challenge of catering to Latter-day Saints living in dispersed groups across the globe. McKay was the first Church president to instigate the policy of discouraging new converts from immigrating to the United States, and providing the opportunity to visit a temple was key in this effort. At this time there were only 13 temples operating worldwide (5 of these dedicated during McKay’s term).

One proposal for a temple was unprecedented, both geographically and architecturally. Early in 1967, McKay asked Mark Garff, chairman of the Building Committee, “to look over the temples and to come back with a recommendation as to what our program should be in the matter of providing new temples and how we could accommodate our people who wish to go to the temples.”1 To study the matter, Garff traveled to Alaska, Hong Kong, the Philippines, New Zealand, and Australia—all areas with significant numbers of Latter-day Saints who were thousands of miles from the nearest temple. By his calculation, 30 percent (785,000) of church members had no access to temples. In response to their need, Garff made a novel proposal to McKay. According to his memo of the meeting, Garff

asked the President to listen me out and see if I was foolish in what I was suggesting. He said he would be glad to listen and I told him I had just returned from the Far East; this is about the only time I have left my desk for the two and a half years I have been working for President McKay and in my mind I tried to conceive a plan whereby we could bring Temple work to our people. I said cautiously to President McKay: “If you think I am out of bounds I want you to tell me, but I am proposing to you now, that the Church obtain or build a ship sufficient in size to run the oceans and we equip this ship as a temple ship; that we take the ship and outfit it as a temple, then take the ship into the ports and harbors where our people live. We could do this around the entire continent of South America, Europe, along the coast of China, Japan, Australia and even Africa if we wanted to.” I was sure the cost would not amount to any more than what the cost of some of our temples has been. I suggested to the President that we do not have the money to build temples all over the world and it would be an impossibility because our funds are limited and if we followed this procedure we could get at least those who want their endowments done while they are still alive, we could move to the ports where we would dock this ship; otherwise it would be impossible for them to have their own endowments and we might carry it even further than their own endowments and move on to doing work for the dead, making this a continuous tour of where there are people needing the blessing of the temple and the holy endowment. After I explained to the President my thinking he said to me: “That is not foolish thinking and I want you to pursue this thought and pursue the feasibility of it and make a report to me.” He seemed to be greatly intrigued with the idea, he seemed to grasp it very quickly and thought it would be a good idea, so I am going to pursue it a little further as fast as my time will allow.2

Nothing more was said on the matter until Garff and his colleagues on the Building Committee reported their proposal to the entire First Presidency almost a year later on October 11, 1968. Repeating what he had earlier said to McKay, Garff then estimated that a suitable ship could be purchased and remodeled for about two million dollars, and operated for about a half-million dollars annually, “less money than it costs us to build a temple anywhere in the United States or elsewhere.” Fred Baker, Garff’s assistant, added that the ship they envisioned–a thousand-ton vessel–would be able to sail both the high seas and the large rivers, including the Mississippi and Misouri, and repeat its circuit every year or so.

Although McKay earlier had responded favorably to the idea, reaction from his three counselors present (Tanner, Dyer, and Joseph Fielding Smith) was less than enthusiastic. Smith “raised the question that Temples were to be constructed according to revelation in Stakes of Zion,” and argument that overlooked the fact that he and his colleagues on the Twelve had approved temples for England, Switzerland, and New Zealand where no stakes then existed.

Alvin R. Dyer “raised the question as to the cursing that has been placed upon the waters in the last days, as to whether it would be proper in the light of that statement by the Prophet to construct a Temple to sail on the waters.”3 He also made a curious point that was completely at odds with the notion of building any new temples when he asked “why we should be so pressing and introducing such urgency methods to get the Temple work done for people in remote places since most of the Temple work will be accomplished in the Millennium.” The meeting concluded on a lukewarm note, with the First Presidency agreeing “that the matter was deserving of careful consideration,” but stopping short of authorizing a search for a ship.4

About two weeks later the First Presidency considered a query from Fred Baker about the idea’s continuing viability. He reported that “a vessel is currently available in Europe at an extremely advantageous price which they would like to consider if there is a possibility that the brethren would approve such a project.” McKay responded, without elaboration, that “as far as I was concerned we are not considering this proposition; that therefore they should not consider taking this vessel.”5 The subject was never discussed again.

Footnotes

1David O. McKay Diaries, October 11, 1968. McKay’s papers do not include a record of the first meeting with Garff in which he gave him the exploratory assignment.

2Mark Garff, Minutes of a Meeting between Mark Garff and David O. McKay, November 30, 1967, David O. McKay Diaries.

3Dyer was alluding to Doctrine and Covenants 61:14-19, a revelation given through Joseph Smith on August 12, 1831, which reads in part: “Behold, I, the Lord, … in the last days…cursed the waters. Wherefore, the days will come that no flesh shall be safe upon the waters.”